Equanimity
by IchBinAufKurs
Summary: Oozma Kappa's initiation without interruptions.


**It could be like it should be, but tomorrow never comes.**

* * *

"And here's what you've been waiting for, fellas." Don Carlton said as he opened a door, flipping on the light switch. "Your very own Oozma Kappa bedroom."

As Mike & Sulley got a good look inside, it wasn't at all what they'd expected. They were a little disappointed on its size, it was smaller than the dormitories the university offered.

"Ah, great!" Sulley said sarcastically as he stepped in. He got another good look at it and asked, "We're sharing this room?"

"We'll let you guys get settled. Anything you need, just give a big holleroony!"

"Okay, thanks buddy!" Sulley said as he shut the door. He quickly turns to Mike and says, "You're kidding me."

"Look, they don't need to be good. I'm gonna carry the whole team." Mike said confidently.

"Really? And who's gonna carry you?" Sulley countered, disdain evident in his voice.

"Hey, you wanna go back to can design? You know where the door is." Mike said defensively.

Just then, the lights go out. Sulley tries turning them off and back on again, but nothing.

"Great."

* * *

"Guys? Anybody home?" Mike asks as they head downstairs.

They see a door creak open and a light coming from the inside. They curiously approach it and find a plight stairs leading to the basement.

"Um, hello?" Mike says as he starts making his way down. "Fellas?" He asks again.

They find a candle lit in the middle of the room, they slowly approach it when out of the dark appears a figure coated in a hooded satanic robe. And as it gets closer to the fire, they see the face of Don Carlton as he spoke.

"Do you pledge your souls to the Oozma Kappa brotherhood?"

"Do you swear to keep secret all that you've learned?" Terri and Terry say, finishing the other's sentence.

"No matter how horrifying?" Art added.

Mike & Sulley looked at each other and nodded.

"Do you take the sacred oath of the Satanic creed?" Squishy asked, holding out a black book.

Mike and Sulley were startled by that question, but were too caught up in what was happening to say anything.

"Do you promise to look out for your brothers, no matter what the peril? Will you defend Oozma Kappa, no matter how dangerous, no matter how insurmountable the odds may be? From evils - both great and small - in the face of unending pain and suffering?"

Mike hesitates. He thinks about Randall. He didn't know what type of challenges they were going to face in the games, but if he were to be put up against Randall, he wasn't sure if he would be able to do what they were asking from him, especially since they'd known each other for so long, but he knew it wouldn't be right to back off now. He wanted to join Oozma Kappa so that he could prove Dean Hardscrabble wrong, so that he could once and for all regain his position as a scaring major. If that meant sacrificing his friendship with Randall, so be it. After all, Randall probably wouldn't think twice about it.

"Yes."

Sulley remained silent, but they took it as a sign that he wasn't out, he was just speechless.

"You're in." Squishy said as he removed his hood/cloak, a smile spreading wide across his face as he handed them Oozma Kappa hats. "Can't wait to start scaring with you, brothers!"

* * *

Mike and Sulley went back to their room. Silence followed them on their way there.

"Mike?"

"I know, I wasn't expecting that from them either."

"Do you think that was actually the Satanic creed?"

"Honestly," Mike paused, "yeah. All those metaphors about unending pain and suffering..."

"What about all those positive things?"

"Well, Satan wasn't necessarily the bad guy."

"What?!"

"I mean what 'evil' did he do, really?"

Sulley stopped and think about it, but he couldn't name a thing.

"Some could even view his actions as heroic. Trying to take down someone he saw as an all-powerful evil dictator, knowing fully well the consequences if he were to fail. Maybe that's what the metaphor was about. We are to value or close friends, and this was just a pact of our friendship, an affirmation that we'd do the right thing regardless of the consequences."

Sulley took some time to think about it, it all made sense.

* * *

The sun was just coming up as Mike slept on his bed. Sulley slept on the top bunk, his hand extending down the side of the bed. Mike accidentally rolls over and cuddles into it.

"I know, you're a princess and I'm just a stable boy." Mike mumbled in his sleep as he tenderly cuddled with the hand.

The alarm rings, waking him up. He realizes what he's doing and pushes Sulley's hand away.

Sulley falls out of the bed.

"Mom?!"

Startled and confused, Sulley looks up at Mike and asks, "What are you doing?!"

"Your grubby paw was in my bed!"

Flustered, Sulley stands up and looks at his paw for a split second and then turns to Mike, "Were you kissing my hand?"

"Ha ha ha ha" Mike laughs sarcastically. "No! And what abou-"

"Mike." Sulley whispers as he puts his paw over the green monster's mouth.

Mike was scared. He'd never seen Sulley so worked up about anything before. He didn't know what his intentions were, and that made the situation even more frightening.

Sulley looks over at the door, listens closely, and then says, "These guys are Satanists. I don't know what they'd do if they found out about this."

Sulley let him go. Mike was just about to say that what had just happened didn't mean anything, but.. he realized that Sulley had just admitted that he liked him, maybe even without realizing it.

They stayed silent for a moment as Sulley listened closely for any movement outdoors.

"You're over reacting, I'm sure it's nothing." He managed to say.

Mike stood up as he headed toward his luggage.

"No, Mike, stop. Let me just-" Sulley said as he tried to push past Mike.

They trip over each other, opening the door to their room as they fall to the floor. They are met with a flash of light.

"First morning in the house." Squishy said as he held a Polaroid camera.

"That's going in the album!" Art added.

* * *

Over breakfast, Don Carlton clears up some misconceptions they had about Satanism. As it turns out, Satanists don't actually believe in Satan, he is only a symbol of freedom, liberty, and pride. Satan in hebrew simply means "The adversary". Satanists simply consider themselves to be the ones to question society and what it considers 'normal' or 'appropriate'.

"Is that also why our clothes are green?" Mike asks.

"Hm?" Don asked, taking a second to catch up, but then continues, "Oh, yes. Green like the snake that tempted Eve to eat the fruit of knowledge, green the color of life. Oh, and just so you know, you guys don't need to be Satanists, you just have to agree with the code. And apparently, most monsters do. But, look. We know we're no one's first choice for a fraternity. So it means a lot to have you here with us."

They all take a sip of their coffee at the same time, leaving awkward silence hanging in the room for a while.

"Now, on to more important matters, what's this about your friend Randall?" Don Carlton spoke up again.

"How'd you know about that?" Mike asked.

"Wait, you used to be friends with Boggs? The Randall Boggs?" Sulley asked, almost shocked that he didn't know that.

"I wasn't just friends with him, we were dorm room partners." Turning to Don Carlton, he asks, "Now, answer the question. How do you know about that?"

"We received a letter from him in the mail."

"A letter? Really?" Squishy asks.

"We never get mail." Terri says.

"Along with this." Don says, holding out a black envelope with the Oozma Kappa logo printed in the front.

The whole fraternity gathers around.

Mike tries to take it, but he struggles. "Would you gimme that!"

He finally pulls it off of Don and opens it.

"Tentacles," Don Carlton laughs, "they're sticky."

Pulling it out of the envelope, he says, "It's the first event of the scare games."

He takes it out and unfolds it. He reads, "A child's room is where you scare, but avoid the toxicity lurking there."

Sulley takes it and asks, "Wait a minute, where do they want us to meet?"

Mike used this time to open his letter from Randall. It read:

_Mike,_

_When I joined RΩR I had no idea I would be competing against you in the scare games. I just did this so I could finally be with the cool kids. But, now that I know we'll be competing against each other, I don't know how I feel about this. But, lets try to have as much fun as we can. Don't take it easy on me, lets use this as an opportunity to figure out who the best monster is. It'll be a comfortable rivalry. Unfortunately, my fraternity doesn't want us to associate with other fraternities during the games, but hopefully once this thing's over we can go back to the way things were. __Best of luck._

_Your friend,  
Randall_

* * *

**Author's Note: I used some of the dialogue from the movie, but.. this was not in the script. I feel like this movie would've been flawless had it not had Squishy's mom ruin the mood, so I decided to take it into a more serious direction. Why this one though? Everything pointed to it. The cloaks, the setting, the fact that Squishy got cut off like this: "Will you take the sacred oath of the s-". It's almost like Disney made PIXAR lighten up the mood with a bad joke.**


End file.
